British Town Class Cruisers
British Town Class Cruisers

Author: Conrad Waters

Publisher: Seaforth Publishing

Published: 2019-11-18

Total Pages: 617

ISBN-13: 1526718871

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This scholarly study of the Royal Navy’s WWII light cruisers presents extensive design, performance, and engagement analysis of each ship. When the Second World War began, the ten British ‘Town’ class cruisers were the most modern vessels of their type in the Royal Navy. Primarily designed for the defense of trade, they played decisive roles in victories such as the Battle of the Barents Sea and the destruction of the German Scharnhorst at the North Cape. They also paid a heavy price: four of the ships were lost and the other six sustained serious damage. In this major study, Conrad Waters provides a technical evaluation of the ‘Town’ class design and its subsequent performance. He outlines the class’s origins in the context of inter-war cruiser policy, explains the design and construction process, and describes the characteristics of the resulting ships and how these were adapted in the light of wartime developments. An overview of service focuses on major engagements and presents detailed assessments of action damage. Concluding chapters explore the the modernization program that kept the remaining ships fit for service during the Cold War era. Heavily illustrated with contemporary photographs and expert drawings, British Town Class Cruisers provides a definitive reference to one of the Royal Navy’s most important warship designs.

British Cruisers
British Cruisers

Author: Norman Friedman

Publisher: Seaforth Publishing

Published: 2011-01-24

Total Pages: 680

ISBN-13: 1783469188

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“An extraordinarily detailed account of the development of Royal Navy cruisers . . . a towering work” from the author of Fighting the Great War at Sea (Warship 2012). For most of the twentieth century, Britain possessed both the world’s largest merchant fleet and its most extensive overseas territories. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Royal Navy always showed a particular interest in the cruiser—a multipurpose warship needed in large numbers to defend trade routes and police the empire. Above all other types, the cruiser’s competing demands of quality and quantity placed a heavy burden on designers, and for most of the interwar period, Britain sought to square this circle through international treaties restricting both size and numbers. In the process, she virtually invented the heavy cruiser and inspired the large 6in-armed cruiser, neither of which, ironically, served her best interests. This book seeks to comprehend, for the first time, the full policy background—from which a different and entirely original picture of British cruiser development emerges. After the war, the cruiser’s role was reconsidered, and the final chapters of the book cover modernizations, the plans for missile-armed ships, and the convoluted process that turned the “through-deck cruiser” into the Invincible class light carriers. With detailed appendices of ship data, and illustrated in depth with photos and A.D. Baker’s specially commissioned plans, British Cruisers truly matches the lofty standards set by Friedman’s previous books on British destroyers. “Wow! . . . Lavishly illustrated with a photograph or line plan on almost every page. The text is packed with technical information, detail, and description of design, construction and application of these important ships.” —Clash of Steel

Town Class Cruisers
Town Class Cruisers

Author: Neil McCart

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 9781904459521

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This book is a complete and quite detailed service history of the Town class cruisers which fought long and hard during the Second World War. All ships careers are covered, including the twilight years before they were scrapped.Well illustrated, full of facts, if the reader requires only service history, the book fills this expectation complete

British Town Class Cruisers
British Town Class Cruisers

Author: Conrad Waters

Publisher: Seaforth Publishing

Published: 2019-11-18

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 152671888X

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Entering service between 1937 and 1939, the ten British ‘Town’ class cruisers were the most modern vessels of their type in the Royal Navy when the Second World War began. Built in response to large 6-inch gunned cruisers in the US and Japanese Navies and primarily designed for the defence of trade, they saw arduous service in a wide range of roles, playing a decisive part in victories such as the Battle of the Barents Sea and the destruction of the German Scharnhorst at the North Cape. The cost was heavy: four of the ships were lost and the other six all survived heavy damage, in some cases on more than one occasion. In this major study, Conrad Waters makes extensive use of archive material to provide a technical evaluation of the ‘Town’ class design and its subsequent performance. He outlines the class’s origins in the context of inter-war cruiser policy, explains the design and construction process, and describes the characteristics of the resulting ships and how these were adapted in the light of wartime developments. An overview of service focuses on major engagements, assessing the extent to which the class met its designers’ expectations and detailing the consequences of action damage. Concluding chapters continue the story into the Cold War era, examining the modernisation programme that kept the remaining ships fit for service during the 1950s. Heavily illustrated with contemporary photographs and drawings by A D Baker III, John Jordan and George Richardson, British Town Class Cruisers provides a definitive reference to one of the Royal Navy’s most important Second World War warship designs.

British Cruisers of the Victorian Era
British Cruisers of the Victorian Era

Author: Norman Friedman

Publisher: Seaforth Publishing

Published: 2012-10-29

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 184832099X

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Gradually evolving from the masted steam frigates of the mid-nineteenth century, the first modern cruiser is not easy to define, but for the sake of this book the starting point is taken to be Iris and Mercury of 1875. They were the RN's first steel-built warships; were designed primarily to be steamed rather than sailed; and formed the basis of a line of succeeding cruiser classes. The story ends with the last armoured cruisers, which were succeeded by the first battlecruisers (originally called armoured cruisers), and with the last Third Class Cruisers (Topaze class), all conceived before 1906. Coverage, therefore, dovetails precisely with Friedman's previous book on British cruisers, although this one also includes the wartime experience of the earlier ships.rn The two central themes are cruisers for the fleet and cruisers for overseas operations, including (but not limited to) trade protection. The distant-waters aspect covers the belted cruisers, which were nearly capital ships, intended to deal with foreign second-class battleships in the Far East. The main enemies contemplated during this period were France and Russia, and the book includes British assessments of their strength and intentions, with judgements as to how accurate those assessments were.rn As would be expected of Friedman, the book is deeply researched, original in its analysis, and full of striking insights ‰ÛÒ another major contribution to the history of British warships.

British Destroyers
British Destroyers

Author: Norman Friedman

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2009-08-30

Total Pages: 895

ISBN-13: 1473812801

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A history of the early days of Royal Navy destroyers, and how they evolved to meet new military threats. In the late nineteenth century the advent of the modern torpedo woke the Royal Navy to a potent threat to its domination, not seriously challenged since Trafalgar. For the first time a relatively cheap weapon had the potential to sink the largest, and costliest, exponents of sea power. Not surprisingly, Britain’s traditional rivals invested heavily in the new technology that promised to overthrow the naval status quo. The Royal Navy was also quick to adopt the new weapon, but the British concentrated on developing counters to the essentially offensive tactics associated with torpedo-carrying small craft. From these efforts came torpedo catchers, torpedo-gunboats and eventually the torpedo-boat destroyer, a type so successful that it eclipsed and then usurped the torpedo-boat itself. With its title shortened to destroyer, the type evolved rapidly and was soon in service in many navies, but in none was the evolution as rapid or as radical as in the Royal Navy. This book is the first detailed study of their early days, combining technical history with an appreciation of the changing role of destroyers and the tactics of their deployment. Like all of Norman Friedman’s books, it reveals the rationale and not just the process of important technological developments.

Yorktown Class Aircraft Carriers
Yorktown Class Aircraft Carriers

Author: Roger Chesneau

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2013-11-14

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1473831644

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This fully illustrated guide offers historical context and step-by-step instruction for building and modifying US aircraft carrier models. This volume in the ShipCraft series covers the Yorktown class of American aircraft carriers. These legendary ships kept the Japanese at bay through World War II, in the dark days between Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway, where the USS Yorktown herself was lost. The USS Hornet launched the famous Doolittle Raid on Japan before being sunk at Santa Cruz in October 1942, but the USS Enterprise survived the fierce fighting of the early war years to become the US Navy's most decorated ship. This lavishly illustrated guide takes readers through a brief history of the development and careers of the Yorktown class. With its unparalleled level of visual information—including paint schemes, line drawings and photographs—it is simply the best reference for any modelmaker setting out to build one of these famous carriers.

HMS Sheffield
HMS Sheffield

Author: Ronald Bassett

Publisher: US Naval Institute Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13:

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This book tells the story of the great Royal Navy cruiser HMS Sheffield, affectionately known as Old Shiny, before, during, and after World War II. The lives of the common sailors at sea in wartime are realistically portrayed, and a mass of operational history is provided.

Cruiser Birmingham
Cruiser Birmingham

Author: Conrad Waters

Publisher: US Naval Institute Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781526724977

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The technical details of British warships were recorded in a set of plans produced by the builders on completion of every ship. Known as the "as fitted" general arrangements, these drawings documented the exact appearance and fitting of the ship as it entered service. Today these plans form part of the incomparable collection of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, which is using the latest scanning technology to make digital copies of the highest quality. This book is one of a series based entirely on these draughts which depict famous warships in an unprecedented degree of detail--complete sets in full color, with many close-ups and enlargements that make every aspect clear and comprehensible. Extensive captions point the reader to important features to be found in the plans, and an introduction covers the background to the design. HMS Birmingham was selected for the series because this famous interwar 'Town-class cruiser is especially well documented. Unusually, three separate sets of plans survive--as completed in 1937, as refitted in 1943, and as modernized in 1952--which allows this novel form of anatomy to cover the whole of the ship's long career.